The Canterbury Health System and its staff are internationally renowned for their whole-of-system approach – where everyone in the health system works together to do the right thing for the patient and the right thing for the system

International awards & recognition

The King's Fund

The Canterbury Health System has been internationally recognised by The King's Fund – a highly-regarded British health authority, as one of the high-performing health systems in the world.

The King's Fund international report encourages other health systems to learn from Canterbury DHB: ​​”The Canterbury Health System model of integrated services and collaboration is being used extensively overseas (particularly NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, NHS Ireland as well as a number of states in Australia).​​” David Meates, Chief Executive, Canterbury DHB.

​​​National awards & recognition

Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (​IPANZ)

The Institute of Public Administration host the annual Public Sector Excellence Awards to recognise outstanding performance and achievement within the New Zealand Public Sector.

Canterbury DHB won four award categories at the IPANZ awards in 2015:

The Prime Minister's award for Public Sector Excellence​; this award was open to all category winners and was won by the Canterbury Health System's Canterbury Clinical Network.

The Treasury Award for Excellence in Improving Public Value through Business Transformation​; the Canterbury Clinical Network which has led the transformation of health services through their patient-centric, clinically-led alliance approach.

The State Services Commission and Leadership Development Centre Award for Improving Performance through Leadership Excellence​; the Canterbury Health System's ‘8' programmes, Xcelr8, Collabor8 and Particip8 which develops leaders across the Canterbury Health System was a joint winner with the Department of Internal Affairs.

The Victoria University of Wellington School of Government Award for Excellence in Public Sector Engagement​. The ‘Heading to hospital – Plan your trip!' campaign to inform Cantabrians about the closure of onsite parking at Christchurch Hospital, and the establishment of a new Park & Ride scheme.

Gold award for Canterbury DHB in energy management

Canterbury DHB is now the proud holder of an Energy-Mark Gold Award for energy management – only the second organisation in New Zealand to do so.
Described as the “ultimate step in the energy management journey” in New Zealand, a Gold Award is a very significant achievement for the DHB, especially for our Maintenance and Engineering team who have worked very hard behind the scenes to make sure that our energy systems are as good as they can possibly be.

We have already earned our Bronze and Silver awards from Enviro-Mark Solutions, the leading provider of environmental certification in New Zealand. A Gold award means that we are now running our energy systems to ISO50001, the international gold standard for energy management. Certification as an Energy-Mark Gold organisation is complicated, but the DHB achieved it “without findings” – in other words, without any corrective measures being required.

“This is a major achievement for the Canterbury DHB,” says Dr Belinda Mathers, General Manager Technical from Enviro-Mark Solutions. “With a bespoke approach to energy management now in place across all sites, the DHB can be proud of achieving international best-practice in energy use, performance and efficiency. We look forward to seeing the effects of future developments such as the proposed wood-waste boilers at the Christchurch Hospital campus on your energy use and management.

Energy-Mark Gold certified organisations have robust processes for making the information within the energy management system accessible and keeping it up to date. The organisation regularly performs internal audits of the management system and top management reviews the strategy of the energy management system

Since 2001, Enviro-Mark Solutions’ environmental certification schemes have ensured that New Zealand companies and organisations benefit from international best practice, applied science, and effective tools. Enviro-Mark Solutions is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Landcare Research, a Government-owned Crown Research Institute.

The Guardian newspaper – UK

Everyone working in the Canterbury Health System should be very proud, as our collective achievements were highlighted in the form of an article published in The Guardian newspaper in the UK on Tuesday 3 July.

The article, ‘Five ideas from other health systems that could transform the NHS’ highlights Canterbury’s integrated health system and talks about our collaborative approach to health and social services care, and our ongoing journey of transformation.